Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

The complaint says they internally called the cancellation process "the Iliad Flow". See page 43 for a full description: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/amazon-rosca-pu...



Disclosure: Work for AWS. My only experience with Prime is as a customer (and the odd beta for new types of programming).

I wouldn't read much into the internal names of things at Amazon. They're picked at random by nerds. I've seen apps internally named after space, Dragon Ball Z, Lord of the Rings, coffee and candy, etc. I'm pretty sure I've used another, completely different thing that's also called Iliad.

It's not malicious. It's just one of those Amazon things that make working there sometimes a chore.


I believe you that some internal names are random, and it's possible that this one is too, but obviously Amazon doesn't have the benefit of the doubt here. What is clearly malicious is that Project Iliad was intentionally designed to reduce cancellations among the population of users that already wanted to cancel (as opposed to reducing cancellations by making the service better). Here's some of the evidence that is redacted in the FTC complaint: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-prime-ftc-probe-custo...

> Internal documents also show that Amazon intentionally drew out the process of canceling a Prime membership. Under a project code-named "Iliad," Amazon created multiple layers of questions and new offers before a Prime member could cancel their subscription, in hopes of reducing member churn. The number of cancellations dropped by 14% at one point in 2017 following the launch of Iliad, and fewer members were navigating to the final cancellation page, one of the documents said.


Yeah the internal codenames in engineering aren't malicious, i.e Apollo makes sense. But a project name? Na, that's picked intentionally.


Direct page link (most in-browser PDF readers support #page=43)

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/amazon-rosca-pu...


Thanks, I guess that works in Firefox too


Also a click-by-click guide! It's a funny world of ours, where the best UI documentation available is found in a government legal action.




Consider applying for YC's W25 batch! Applications are open till Nov 12.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: